Jan 29, 2016

Old Age And Survivor Trust Fund Keeps Growing

Social Security has posted the final 2015 numbers for the Old Age and Survivor's Trust Fund. Please note that despite the gloom and doom from the right that the Trust Fund reserves keep increasing and now stand at $2.8 trillion. That's trillion with a T. I'm sure that we'll hear the right say that this proves that SOCIAL SECURITY IS DOOMED TO FAIL. They've been proven wrong for more than 80 years but they keep bellowing the same thing. Koch brothers money buys a lot of bellowing.

10 comments:

Anonymous
said...

You must be smoking some good North Carolina weed. You know as well as the majority of Americans, that the SSA "Old Age and Survivor Trust" is the largest Ponzi scheme ever devised. It is broke. There is not one penny in the "Trust Fund", except for a bunch of USG IOU's. I challenge you to provide concrete evidence there exists $2.8 trillion in the Trust Fund. The majority of the "trust fund" is diverted to other US government revenue needs, again replaced by IOU's.

I agree with you that the trust fund is something of a fiction. We are essentially financing benefits with current and future general tax revenues. The only use of the trust fund is that the payment of current benefits is not subject to a budget fight every year.

Moron, I never said the IOU's were worthless. Re-read my comments. The premise of my post is that there is not $2.8 trillion dollars in a "trust fund" account. I will donate $1,000,000 to your favorite charity if you can show me where $3.8 trillion is in a SSA trust fund account or a "reserve account". Safe bet. Your can't.

Certainly the OASI Trust Fund is real - that's why a lot of people are claiming Social Security is broken. Many people who claim the Trust Fund isn't real want to cut benefits now. But by law Social Security can continue to pay full benefits until the number assigned to the Trust Fund (whether you believe it is real or not) reaches 0. Even if that happens, Social Security will have lots of money coming in from taxes (not enough to pay scheduled benefits probably, but enough to pay about 75% of them, which is more in real dollars than current recipients get).

we, and by "we" I mean we who do not want benefit cuts, actually need to stop saying there is no trust fund money. Yes, I understand that the money was spent and is not really just sitting in an account waiting to be debited but instead is represented by IOUs. But legally, that money is there. Those IOUs SHOULD be as good as cash.

We need to act as though that money IS there, or at least should be there, so that when Congress and/or a President wants to cut benefits because the trust funds' CURRENT/ON HAND funds run out, we can scream right back that the money was there, they borrowed it for other stuff, and now are trying to shirk on the bill since they would have to repay it out of current operating funds.

If you are under 40 you better believe that there is no SSA and plan to handle retirement and your health on your own. Your retirement age will be above 70 and so will Medicare entitlement.

For those that think I am anti Boomer you are right. Since the Boom started the generation was told it would be the largest cohort. They knew very early on that a small bump in the tax was needed to ensure solvency and keep funds in place. But the most entitled generation in history would not pay to support itself. I will have my tax burden raised to support them in the future, they will wait till the majority will not have to pay the tax to pass it.

Interesting point. It is true that later generations will likely be paying at a higher rate to support those who paid a lower rate when they were contributing but who are not collecting. That, unfortunately, is now water under the bridge.

@1:24

I am always amused by your types of arguments. Under fairly much the same premise all money is a fiction. It has value because we agree as a society that it has value, and that has been reduced to law. Otherwise, all those dollar bills in your wallet would be as worthless as monopoly money.

@9:42

Perhaps some oligarch will bribe a politician sufficiently to propose cutting Social Security and Medicare in the manner you suggest. If they are dumb enough to actually try it, you will see an enormous backlash and I predict, an epic fail.

"WE" baby boomers provided SSA TAXES money at an epic rate because there were so many of us. We paid for the previous generation too!.Besides, that if corporate America hadn't decided to get rid of several million baby boomers on, on injuries on the job, then the SSA would more money too. I'm real tired of those who complain that the baby boomers only think of themselves as entitled when it the following generation who thinks they're the entitled. Find out how much of that money goes to those who can come in the country & get refuge money from the SSA. while those who were hurt on the job get about 1/3rd. So went our retirement & pensions thanks to employers that either raided the pensions/retirements or put the pensions in 401k's that went spelunk with the last crash So, if you have a gripe about where your SSA taxes are going, then bitch to the congress who set all if the shenanigans in motion erst the while welcoming pitting one group of American like you against Americans like me. You fell for congress's diversionary tactics. Most baby boomer's are barely getting along on their smidgen SSA benefits & they worked for well over 45 years. How long do you plan to work? AND that doesn't count the vets who only get SSDI because the VA is denying vets claims going back to Viet Nam & definitely the vets of the Mideast wars are being denied. There's a pattern here of people getting denied just about everything work related & all of the safety nets we paid for. Congress is responsible but it is better to pit citizens against citizens so congress doesn't take the deserved heat. Like I said, if you have a gripe go to your congress person & see if they will help you and oh yeah! GOOD LUCK with that one!